Urban Landscape + Lifestyle Photography

April 14, 2017April 15, 2017

Laura in Color

Laura, SXSW 2017 Olympus Drink and Click – Austin, Texas

Continuing with the second in the series, here’s Laura from the SXSW Olympus Drink and Click. I’ve met Laura several times, at previous Drink and Clicks, but never made a satisfactory portrait. I like this for its quiet, elegant beauty. Unlike yesterday’s post, which had strong contrasting colors, today’s is dominated by the reddish tones, not only in the background but in the portrait itself.

With one light from above, it wasn’t ideally positioned to properly light Laura’s face. In retrospect, I probably should have re-position Laura or the lighting better. I also underexposed the image, fearing that I would overexpose Laura’s fair skin. As a result, I needed a good amount of post processing to make this look decent – unlike yesterday’s portrait of Elena, where I did almost nothing in post. Goes to show how important it is to get it right in camera.

I even tweaked the red of the background curtains to better match yesterday’s. I wanted the two photos to have a similar feel, so they appeared like part of the same series. I’m really starting to enjoy the power of the Capture One software, that I moved to recently. It allows me to change a number of things fairly easily. As an even more capable post-processing tool, compared to Aperture 3, its become another avenue of creativity.

Like yesterday, I used the Olympus PEN-F and the Olympus 45mm f1.8. The 45mm is small, light and well-regarded. I should use it more, but it generally fell out of favor as I tended to shoot wide. As I start shooting with different lenses, I think my focal length repertoire is expanding. No longer am I just stuck at a 35mm equivalent.

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